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Hello, and welcome to the Right Hand Talent newsletter! I’m Zaharo, and I write about all things Chief of Staff, talent, and career excellence.
Every week, you’ll get 3 new CoS jobs that are on my radar, reqs we’re working on, my thoughts on growing in the CoS role and as a professional, top stories I’m following on X, and more.
I have to remind myself to try to meet people where they are with the consciousness stuff.
The body keeps the score.
What you focus on expands.
Here is some interesting advice I came across recently:
“Let it go” is the worst business advice
Letting things go means you don’t care about what’s right or true
Serious people hold grudges
I couldn’t disagree more.
As I do more inner work, I’ve noticed that my initial thoughts when I come across opinions with which I disagree have shifted. Rather than jumping to an immediate judgement — “this is a shiit take” (🍄) — what bubbles up for me is “that’s an interesting frame from which to view the world”. And then I think about the level of consciousness and awareness reflected in that frame.
Here’s what I think:
“Let it go” is the most helpful advice in general (not just for business!), and at the same time is the hardest skill to learn and master
Letting things go means you’re aware of and recognize your true, authentic self
Unhealed people hold grudges which are reflective of a deep wound; holding grudges can ruin your health
Why “letting it go” is helpful advice
Close your eyes for a second. Think about a grudge you hold against someone. Maybe it’s an old friend that double-crossed you, an ex that mistreated you, or a former boss that fired you. When you’re done thinking, move into feeling — you can do this by focusing your attention on your body. What feelings come up? I’ll take a guess here: anger, rage, resentment, disgust, sadness…
I understand how these feelings can build into “chips on shoulders”, which are then leveraged into “action” and “doing” in the real world (read: accomplishment!), but to me it’s more like letting plaque build up on your teeth. You can only avoid brushing your teeth — facing your pain — for so long before things start to rot and you find yourself in crisis.
I think there’s fear around the phrase “letting go” because it can sound like “not caring”, “being a pushover”, “not having a backbone”, etc. On the contrary, it means you care immensely and that you are highly intentional and principled, but in a way that’s most helpful to yourself and those around you.
And when we talk about letting things go, we don’t mean just acknowledging a negative emotion and consciously saying, “OK I’m going to let this go now” (if only it were that easy!!) Acknowledgement is actually just step 1 of surrendering, and this can be the hardest step to get to because it requires self-awareness, or an ability to watch the thought or feeling as if you were a third-party observer.
This is actually really freaking hard, because our patterns are so ingrained that our responses to triggers are essentially automatic.
0 to 100 real quick.
We easily find ourselves reacting from a place where there is no observation or awareness or consciousness, rather, just unconsciousness.
If you can learn to let things go, you go from being in a state of unconsciousness to consciousness, and through this process begin to free yourself from being a slave to your patterns. You can move through life with more ease and still accomplish great things, but without a chip on your shoulder (and the immense emotional baggage and suffering that comes with it) as the prerequisite.
“Freedom from” patterns (and yes, grudges), letting go, and surrendering also means “recognition of” your true Authentic Self. The Authentic Self is the one who is present, aware, open-hearted, connected to oneself and others…the observer of the emotions, not the emotions themselves. And what could make it easier to identify what is “true” or “right” than present awareness and greater alignment with your Authentic Self? What could be more helpful than not letting your ego abandon your Self?
And saying that only “serious” people hold grudges is at best misinformed. (Also, what does serious even mean…I don’t want to be serious, I want to have fun while crushing it 😂). But I think what’s meant by serious here is resilient, gritty, gutsy, disciplined, etc. and what is actually a sign of that is someone who has the ability to identify the grudge as an opportunity to face one’s pain and do the inner work.
Ultimately, I think mastering the skill of letting go and moving towards living in a state of greater consciousness, awareness, and alignment with your Authentic Self is actually really beneficial when it comes to facing life’s challenges head on, which we can do with more clarity, purpose, resilience, compassion, creativity, ease, and wisdom, vs fear, anxiousness, or anger and like everything is a battle or war to be waged.
Ultimately, negative emotions aren’t bad — they’re totally normal. And they actually represent gifts, or opportunities to do the inner work and get on the path of moving from states of unconsciousness to consciousness.
You can choose to get on that path whenever you want, and it’s one that will undoubtedly lead you to deeper fulfillment, greater achievement, and a more profound connection with your inner world and the world around you.
If you’re over holding grudges and want to go deeper on “how to surrender”, I recommend these posts:
Chief of Staff @ HealthTech Startup
Our seed stage HealthTech client recently closed a $7M round of financing and is seeking a high-horsepower Chief of Staff to help drive accountability across the company and collaborate closely with the CEO.
They have a very heavy cap table with a “who’s who” of investors from top healthcare startups, hospital systems, and institutions.
Key Responsibilities:
Creating an accountability system through establishing OKRs
Establishing corporate infrastructure
Setting up recruiting function
Ad hoc projects and initiatives
Qualifications:
Startup experience is a must
Operational expertise
Revenue cycle management and/or medical billing experience is a big bonus
Culture:
The Chief of Staff candidate must be on board with an intense work culture given that the team regularly works 60-80 hours/week
What They Offer:
💰 Salary: $100-165k
📍 This role is based in New York City (in-office 5x/week)
Other:
Our client is also hiring an Executive Assistant (more details here).
If you're interested and want to learn more about the company, just apply here! I’ll get back to you ASAP if your experience aligns with what they’re looking for.
Check out our job board for the full list of opportunities with our clients!
⚕️Chief of Staff at Notable — intelligent automation for healthcare
My thoughts: Notable uses AI to continuously scan electronic health records and identify workflows to perform, reducing the administrative burden on physicians and practices. They last raised $100M from top VCs in 2021.
From the JD: The Chief of Staff will..
Plan and monitor day-to-day operations to ensure smooth progress across operational and financial activities toward strategic goals.
Drive process across the entire Executive Leadership Team to ensure everyone is running effectively and on the highest priorities/challenges.
Work closely with the Executive Administrative Partner to ensure the appropriate management of the CEO’s calendar, prioritizing tasks and meetings in alignment with organizational goals (this was the last bullet)
It’s great to see it spelled out that they have an exec admin partner and it wouldn’t be part of the CoS’s duties. Also, kudos to Notable for staying true to their roots in reducing administrative burden wherever possible, even in this role 😂.
Things that jump out at me about the ideal candidate:
6+ YoE in bizops or finance at a startup or management consulting
Plus: high growth startup exp
Preferred: healthcare industry
I think someone with a couple of years at MBB and a few at a healthtech startup would be a really strong fit here. They’re Series B so this is when you start seeing founders looking for domain expertise in their Chief of Staff.
💰 Salary: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ unlisted but could easily go up to $200k IMO
📍 This role is hybrid in San Mateo, CA (in-office 3x/week minimum)
📥 Apply here.
🐟 Chief of Staff at Flying Fish Partners — early-stage VC
My thoughts: ‘Tis rare the job posting for Chief of Staff at a venture firm. A lot of these opportunities are part of the hidden job market and go unadvertised because partners have deep networks and usually have someone in mind already. So I wanted to amplify this!
From the JD: The Chief of Staff will..
Take the lead on events, on social media, on research, and on other special projects
Make order out of chaos
Think deeply about cool opportunities for the firm and executing on big and small plans
What gave me pause: "'You take pride in your ‘attention to detail’ administrative work with expense reports, ordering, heavy scheduling, travel booking, events, and more” — so there’s admin involved in this role. Not something I’d recommend this CoS spends a ton of time on, but perhaps there are exceptions to rules, even my own. The upside potential of really having your hands in everything and getting a ton of visibility on a 7-person team might be worth the admin aspects. Ideally the CoS is in a position to recommend a VA or something like that after they’ve been in the role for some time, or will have automated the majority of this.
Things that jump out at me about the ideal candidate:
Charisma and an intuitive ability to connect with people
Kindness and strength to deliver bad news
An ability to laugh at yourself and us :)
💰 Salary: Also unlisted but likely around $100-125k
📍 This role is hybrid in Seattle, WA (in-office 3x/week)
📥 More info here. Apply by submitting a resume and cover letter detailing your qualifications for the position and interest to grace@flyingfish.vc.
💼 Chief of Staff at Lily.ai — bridging the gap between brand speak + customer speak
My thoughts: Really cool e-commerce product (drives 9-figure revenue lift? Huge if true).
From the JD: The Chief of Staff will focus on…
Strategic planning and execution
Operational optimization
Communication and stakeholder management
Things that jump out at me about the ideal candidate:
Preferred: MBA, startup exp
Demonstrated ability to lead AI projects w/ technical and non-technical colleagues
10+ YoE in mgmt consulting, bizops, or similar
5+ YoE leading cross-functional teams
💰 Salary: $159-222k (solid range based on what they’re looking for)
📍 This role is remote but they’re only hiring in specific states, so peep the JD.
📥 Apply here.
Shaan Puri shares what he thinks makes a great employee
CBInsights’ latest VC ranking left out 1 very successful firm
I was today year’s old when I learned how you can visually learn Morse code
Derek Haswell offers a reframe for how to view a good days’ work
Some people got upset about MKBHD’s review of the Humane AI pin
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